Capacity Building Workshops for Business Support Organizations (BSOs) in West Africa and the Caribbean

The Mandate:

Expertise France entrusted BA with a significant responsibility: Design and implement capacity-building workshops for Business Support Organizations (BSOs) across West Africa and the Caribbean. These workshops, forming a part of the DIRECCT programme, were branded as ‘Championing MSME Success in E-commerce: Strategy and Knowledge Training for BSOs’. They had dual objectives:

Deepening the comprehension of E-commerce principles, recognizing the distinct necessities and emergent best practices tailored for BSOs within the MSME framework.

Elevating BSOs' abilities to guide their MSME memberships through their E-commerce trajectories.

In essence, the initiative aimed to fortify the e-commerce linkage between BSOs and MSMEs, giving the latter a robust foundation for participating meaningfully in E-commerce.

The Approach:

BA's strategy embraced a diverse learning approach to guarantee optimal knowledge retention and enthusiastic participation. Methods comprised of surveys, theoretical dialogues, illustrative case studies, collaborative knowledge exchanges, and intimate instructor sessions. Steering the BA team were Principal Rahul Bhatnagar and E-commerce Expert, Sven Callebaut.

The workshop series commenced in Abidjan on June 13-14, 2023, attracting attendees from four West African nations and the Caribbean's regional entity, CEDA. Subsequently, a virtual workshop, dedicated exclusively to Caribbean BSO representatives, unfolded on July 5-6, 2023. The workshop represented 14

countries and a regional export development agency, thereby ensuring a rich exchange of ideas across different economic contexts.

The workshop’s layout had a balanced blend: It initiated with profound discussions on essential E-commerce paradigms and segued into actionable sessions for BSOs. A critical activity involved a thorough needs-analysis, where BSOs shared MSMEs' prerequisites for transitioning from traditional to digital domains and also shared their country experiences in terms of successes, challanges and lessons learned. Participants proactively delved into leveraging "multipliers", like expert trainers and consultants, and acquiring knowledge on curating e-commerce propositions and business toolkits. Notably,  strategies for sourcing financial backing and crafting consumer handbooks were also discussed.

Concluding the series, BA furnished Expertise France with a comprehensive report. The report advocated for:

§  Crafting a visionary E-commerce strategy reinforced by a specialized HR approach.

§  Provisioning business toolkits for facilitating Offline to Online transitions.

§  Fostering collaborations with benefactors and developmental associates.

§  Augmenting BSOs’ training proficiencies.

§  Encouraging inter-country BSO networking.

Results:

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Participants appreciatedthe workshop's structure, the insightful content, and its delivery. The interactive format, especially the case studies and group assignments, received commendation. Moreover, the expertise of trainers and the quality of resources provided further accentuated the workshop's success.

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